Hibernate: @Transactional(readOnly = true) skips dirty checking

It also lets the driver and some databases route to a replica. Cheap win on every query method.

Code

@Transactional(readOnly = true)
public List<Order> recent() {
    return repo.findTop50ByOrderByPlacedAtDesc();
}

Output

Hibernate skips taking snapshots of loaded entities,
so a 5,000-row read allocates far less and never issues a stray UPDATE.

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Published 2026-08-11